Leonard: With this rookie QB class flashing talent early on, Giants have to hope they were right to bet on Saquon Barkley

Rookie quarterbacks Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen and Josh Rosen all have made plays already this preseason that have shown glimpses that each top-10 pick has the clear potential to be the future of the Browns, Jets, Bills and Cardinals franchises.

And yet the Giants passed on three of those four QBs with their No. 2 overall pick in April’s NFL draft and would have passed on all four given the opportunity, based on GM Dave Gettleman famously saying of the eligible quarterbacks: “If you have to try to make yourself fall in love with a player, it is wrong.”

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Saquon Barkley, obviously, is the apple of the Giants’ eye. His 39-yard first carry from scrimmage this preseason demonstrated exactly why the running back is a special talent. And none of these rookie QBs has appeared yet in a regular season NFL game, so it will be a long time before anyone can judge the Giants right or wrong for the pick.

Saquon Barkley has also shown his promise in just one appearance for Giants. (Bill Kostroun / AP)

Still, it is confusing to watch Mayfield’s accuracy and mobility, Darnold’s poise and talent, Allen’s recent improvisation under pressure, and Rosen’s cool delivery, and to think: wait a minute, the Giants didn’t think any of these guys could be the guy? Even possibly?

This is an applicable conversation this week especially as the Giants and Jets prepare for their annual preseason showdown at MetLife Stadium on Friday night, with Darnold, the Jets’ darling rookie QB, drawing rave reviews and Barkley shelved for six days — and out of Sunday’s practice — with a left hamstring strain.

Shurmur said Sunday of what he liked about Darnold’s pre-draft evaluation: “He’s very charismatic. He has that winning presence about him. And you could see being with him on campus at USC that the players really kinda came to him. So he had that, and he obviously was highly successful as a quarterback (in college).”

But Gettleman and Shurmur passed on Darnold with the No. 2 pick, so that’s the true indication of how they felt, leaving him on the board for the Jets to gladly select the Southern Cal standout at No. 3.

Darnold recounted Sunday that at the draft, with the Browns holding the top pick and the Giants on the clock at two, Darnold “wasn’t sure what was going to happen.”

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Will the Giants regret passing up on Sam Darnold? (Nick Wass / AP)

“I was just waiting for my call, for the phone to ring,” Darnold said of draft night. “I was just waiting, waiting, waiting, when that phone was going to ring, pick it up, so that was pretty much it. I wasn’t really, ‘Oh you know I think the Giants are going to pick me.’ It was just like I don’t know what’s going to happen. So I was just waiting.”

The call never came from the Giants because, as Gettleman and Shurmur said after taking Barkley, “we thought that this was the best player in the draft.” And yet it is still remarkably risky, with Eli Manning fading and 37 years old and so many of these young QBs showing such promise early, that the Giants didn’t go quarterback.

Remember: while second-year QB Davis Webb showed signs Friday night in Detroit that he could one day succeed Manning, on draft night Shurmur would not and could not even call the Barkley pick a vote of confidence in Webb.

“I don’t know if it is a vote of confidence in Davis,” Shurmur said in April.

Shurmur actually wouldn’t even commit Sunday to Webb being the clear No. 2 behind Manning ahead of this year’s fourth-round pick out of Richmond, Kyle Lauletta.

“We have Eli, and then there’s really no depth chart there,” Shurmur said.

And so there were three primary factors at play on draft night: surely, the Giants loved Barkley; but also there was the whiplash effect of last season, throwing their full support back behind Manning to win now; and they obviously did not feel as strongly about Darnold and these rookie QBs as the teams who picked and traded up for them.

It’s a strange dynamic, though, to watch the promise of so many of the young QBs on display so early for the Browns, Jets, Bills and Cardinals, and to think that after Mayfield had his way with the Giants in the preseason opener, somehow the Giants’ brass didn’t see enough in any of these passers.

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Now Shurmur and the Giants will have to take on Darnold and the future they decided against on Friday night, perhaps with Barkley still sidelined, as well.

Shurmur, meanwhile, also will be coaching Friday against a quarterback from his past.

“We have Eli, and then there’s really no depth chart there.”

Pat Shurmur on where Davis Webb stands

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The Jets’ Teddy Bridgewater was the Minnesota Vikings’ starting QB when Shurmur took the job as Mike Zimmer’s offensive coordinator in 2016. But Bridgewater never made it to Week 1, suffering a career-threatening knee injury and appearing in just one game in Shurmur’s two years.

“I was standing just a few feet from him when he had his injury, and it was a very tough deal,” Shurmur said Sunday. “Teddy is an outstanding, competitive guy, and he’s got a unique charisma … When he got injured, everybody was pulling for him to come back. I’m thrilled for whatever success he’s having. I did peek at the (Jets’ last) game, and it appears to me like he’s playing pretty well … Don’t sleep on Teddy, because I think he’s got it in him.”

Bridgewater’s future performance can’t be an indictment on Shurmur and the Giants, though, anymore than it can be on any other NFL team that didn’t sign him as a free agent this offseason.

Darnold, however, could end up being the one who got away — one of many, perhaps, based on the promise of the rookies we’ve seen so far.

Pat Leonard is the Giants/NFL beat writer and columnist. He has worked at the Daily News since May 2010 and covered the NHL's Rangers for five seasons. Pat graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2006.